A Missouri lawmaker, Rep. Rick Brattin (R-Harrisonville), contends that public school children in his state who question Darwinian theory are ridiculed. He introduced a bill into the state's General Assembly that would allow parents to opt their children out of evolution teaching.

A hundred people, or 25 teams, spent several hours brainstorming, programming, designing and launching mobile applications over the weekend at a three-day hackathon in Burbank called Game+Hack 2014.
Co-hosted by the YMCA, the city of Burbank and...

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) this week applauded a vote by U.S House of Representatives to approve a bill that would award grants to states to implement DNA collection for people arrested for felonies.
Originally introduced in 2010, the bill bears the...

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) on Monday hailed the bipartisan support of a bill that would award grants to states that start programs to collect DNA samples of people arrested on suspicion of violent felonies.
The legislation, which is headed to...

Technicians at the Verdugo Regional Crime Laboratory will soon be able to work more efficiently during DNA extractions thanks to two robots the lab is going to purchase.
The City Council Tuesday approved use of a DNA backlog grant from the National...

A 55-year-old Los Angeles man pleaded guilty Monday to charges that several years ago he killed two missing women, including one from Glendale whose body was discovered in trash bags along a roadside in Rosarito, Mexico.
Aurangzeb “Simon” Manjra took a plea offer in exchange for pleading guilty to the first-degree murder of Glendale resident Esperanza Torio, and the second-degree murder of 44-year-old Los Angeles resident Maria Santos, according to Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los...

A 55-year-old Los Angeles man was sentenced Wednesday to serve 25 years to life in prison for the deaths of a Glendale woman whose dismembered body was found in Mexico and another woman whose body has never been found.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George Lomeli, who had previously viewed photographs of Esperanza Torio’s dismembered body, called convicted killer Aurangzeb “Simon” Manjra’s case “absolutely sickening” before sentencing him.
“You have a...

A new long-awaited regional crime laboratory could begin processing vital ballistic analysis and DNA evidence for hundreds of unsolved property crimes as early as May, police said Thursday.
Local police and city officials on Thursday introduced the Verdugo Regional Crime Laboratory that authorities said will allow quicker processing of crime scene evidence in Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena.
“We could use DNA early on to intercede as rapidly as possible,” Glendale Police Ron De Pompa said at...

A bill recently introduced by Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) would make it easier for police departments to use DNA technology to solve cold cases.
Schiff pointed to last year's break in the 25-year-old so called “Grim Sleeper” serial murder case, where the Los Angeles Police Department used DNA from a suspect to conduct a check of California's DNA database to see if there were any leads within his family.
Investigators started focusing on, and eventually arrested, the suspect's father,...

President Obama on Thursday signed into law legislation sponsored by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) that would help fund a DNA database of people arrested on suspicion of committing violent felonies.
In a statement, Schiff said the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act would provide a “vital tool for law enforcement to help save lives and prevent future crimes.”
“By improving our DNA system, we will make sure that more violent and serious crimes are solved,” he said.
The...

The Glendale Police Foundation recently donated a vital piece of DNA sterilization equipment to the Police Department’s regional crime laboratory, officials said.
The sterilizing hood will allow forensic specialists to work with DNA evidence without having to worry about contamination. Ultraviolet light inside in a hood, which is enclosed by Plexiglas, sterilizes evidence.
The hood costs about $5,000, according to Glendale Police Sgt. Tom Lorenz.
The Verdugo Regional Crime Laboratory will serve...

Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) have been raising alarms about potential new hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan where violence erupted for years after the fall of the Soviet Union.
At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on March 1, Sherman asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to take a strong stance against the increasing threats of Azeri violence against ethnic Armenians in the region.
“The defense...